Professor Sir Philip Cohen

SAB Member

Sir Philip Cohen is Professor of Enzymology in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee and a highly respected scientific leader, mentor and trend-setter. Over the last half century, Philip has made multiple seminal contributions to the cell signaling field, leading substantial programmes of research at the University of Dundee relevant to protein phosphorylation and ubiquitination. Perhaps his most notable contributions to these fields were the delineation of multiple MAPK pathways, alongside pioneering work emphasising the uptake, evaluation and translational exploitation of kinase inhibitors for the treatment of human diseases.

Professor Elton Zeqiraj

SAB Member

Elton Zeqiraj is a Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Leeds. His research interests are focused on investigating how cell signalling networks are regulated and how this impacts disease conditions and future therapeutic opportunities. Elton was one of the pioneers of structural biology of pseudokinases and pseudoenzymes studying prominent therapeutic targets in phospho and ubiquitin signalling systems.

Professor David Spring

SAB Member

David Spring is currently a Professor at the University of Cambridge within the Chemistry Department. He worked with Sir Jack E. Baldwin (University of Oxford) and Stuart L. Schreiber (Harvard University), before he joined the faculty at the University of Cambridge in 2001. David’s research spans the disciplines of chemistry and biology through the synthesis of molecules, which are applied to problems in the life sciences. In particular, he has focused on diversity-oriented synthesis, new synthetic methodologies and chemical biology in order to discover new, biologically-functional molecules. He has co-authored around 250 journal articles. His group’s laboratory has been awarded a number of research prizes including the Royal Society of Chemistry’s “Corday-Morgan Award”. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). He has collaborated with many international companies in the chemical industries.

Dr Karen Keeshan

SAB Member

Karen Keeshan is Associate Professor at the Paul O’Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre (POGLRC), School of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. Karen received her PhD from University College Cork, Ireland, and did postdoctoral training under the guidance of Prof Bruno Calabretta at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia and then with Prof Warren Pear at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. She began her independent research in 2008 at University College Cork, before moving to the POGLRC in 2012. Her research focuses on the molecular basis of AML and mechanisms of chemoresistance. She has worked on AML for >20 years, with research highlights including the identification and characterisation of the novel AML oncogene, the pseudokinase Tribbles, and defining molecular profiles and distinctions of paediatric and adult AML. Her work on mouse models contributes to our knowledge of niche-dependent processes in leukaemia development at different ages.

Professor Natarajan Kannan

SAB Member

Natarajan Kannan is Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and the Institute of Bioinformatics at the University of Georgia, USA.  His research encompasses mapping genome-phenome relationships in biomedically important protein families through the integration of quantitative and experimental approaches. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in the areas of protein biophysics and bioinformatics with over 4,000 citations. He has trained over 50 undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate trainees, junior scientists and young investigators. He is the recipient of multiple state and national awards including the Georgia Coalition Distinguished Scholar Award, National Science Foundation CAREER award, NIH Maximizing Research Investigator Award and UGA Creative Research Medal award. See esbg.bmb.uga.edu for more details.

Dr Simon Cook

SAB Member

After a Biochemistry degree (RHC, London, 1983-86) Simon undertook his PhD with Michael Wakleam at the University of Glasgow (1987-91). He then moved to Post-Doc with Frank McCormick at ONYX Pharmaceuticals in the San Francisco Bay Area where he studied the then emerging RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK1/2 pathway (1991-94). He stayed at ONYX as a Staff Scientist, member of the RAS Steering Committee and Inflammation Project Manager (1994-1997). Simon joined the Babraham Institute as a tenure-track group leader in 1997, held a CRUK Senior Cancer Research Fellowship from 2000-2006 and was promoted to Senior Group Leader (Band 2, Professorial) in 2016. From 2013-2021 he was Head of Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation within the Institute. Since September 2020, Simon has led the Institute’s Signalling Programme and was appointed Interim Institute Director in 2021 and full Director in 2022. Simon has collaborated with AstraZeneca for more than 15 years on mechanisms of innate and acquired resistance to MEKi, FGFRi, mTORi. This work identified PKB signalling as an innate driver of MEKi resistance, part of the work that prompted a Selumetinib + MK2206 clinical trial (with Merck). Work on acquired resistance to MEKi through BRAF amplification also contributed to a large body of work validating MEKi+BRAFi in BRAFmut melanoma and CRC. More recently his lab identified the MCL1 inhibitor AZD5991 as a rational combination with BRAFi and/or MEKi in melanoma. He has also collaborated with Astex Pharmaceuticals, MISSION Therapeutics and PhoreMost (through a collaborative Innovate UK award) to translate his knowledge of signalling pathways.